


Running In The Shadows

by nerddowell



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Rush (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Car Racing, Bucky gets away with more than he really should, Car Accidents, Clint is Bucky's unwilling therapist, Drinking to Cope, F1 Grand Prix, Formula 1, Formula One, James Hunt Bucky, Multi, Near Death Experiences, Niki Lauda Steve, Pining, Pining Bucky Barnes, Rush AU, basically just think Hunt/Lauda and you've got it, it's a mystery, like honestly it's adorable bless him, where do I get these AUs from
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-17 20:42:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4680722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerddowell/pseuds/nerddowell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Formula One/"Rush" AU based on the story of James Hunt and Niki Lauda's rivalry for the 1976 Grand Prix championship. Set in the modern day (although with certain slight changes), with the race schedule for the 2015 season - starting in Australia, finishing in Abu Dhabi.</p><p>Bucky Barnes is the livewire F1 driver who is infamous for taking risks, on-track crashes and dramatic finishes. His main on-track rival is the more cautious Steve Rogers, who utilises clever driving and sneaky passes to chase pole position. On track, they're locked in a fierce battle for the championship. Off track, they're the best of friends. But there's only going to be one winner, and whilst there's everything to play for, there's also everything that can go wrong...</p><p>Title from Fleetwood Mac's <em>The Chain</em>, the Formula One programme theme as televised by the BBC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fuel

**Author's Note:**

> I swear my AUs get weirder and weirder. Anyway, enjoy it!
> 
> Beta'ed by the invaluable [Mai](http://perfbucky.tumblr.com), who got far more excited about Steve/Sam than I was expecting. Thank you again to her, and any mistakes remaining are 100% my own!

The television recording screens are showing the tell-tale air ripples of heat rising off the track as the drivers settle themselves on the grid. Bucky flexes his fingers in his gloves, tapping impatiently against the wheel rim as he waits for the flash of the checkered flag letting them know that the race has begun. There's already a thin mist of heat rising off the track, baked by the Australian March sun, and he's absolutely itching to get going. In front of him, one space from the back of the grid, Rogers is sitting in his Team Ferrari SF15-T. He can imagine Steve's face, pinched in fierce concentration, the way he would be listening intently to his team's directions over the helmet intercom, unlike the way Bucky is blithely ignoring his own. Clint will likely shear his balls off with one of the car jacks if he crashes in his first race (not the first time Bucky would ever have done so), but he doesn't have time to think about those consequences as the checkered flag is being lowered by one of the race marshals and he can hear the blood pounding in his ears as he revs his engine in preparation.

The race starts in a flutter of black and white and the scream of rapidly accelerating F1 engines, and he's already shooting around the first bend when he sees Rogers weaving in and out of cars six, seven, eight places ahead, already firmly establishing himself near the front. Bucky grins inside his helmet; that's a red rag to a bull, a teasing hand on his shoulder telling him "You're it!" and _the game, Watson, is most definitely afoot_. He rockets ahead, narrowly avoiding a scratch from Massa - Clint groans loudly over the intercom, and Bucky just laughs, exhilarated - and chases Steve around the track, throwing himself around the corners and barely taking notice of himself counting up lap after lap until he's taken second place, what looks like less than a hair's breadth behind Steve.

He can almost hear the blond's laughter, his teasing "Come get me!" attitude; every season since their days in Formula Three, in shitty  home-built cars and malfunctioning engines and oversteering has been building up to this, their grand finale. This season is going to be the one in which one of them beats the other. This is the season in which the only racers everyone at home cares about will be them. The season where the fans are screaming for Bucky and Steve like they did for Hunt and Lauda back in 1976 (which was the last time a rivalry like theirs was seen on track). Bucky sees Steve opening up a little, but not wide enough to skirt past, never wide enough for that. Rogers can read him like a book, Bucky knows, and he wouldn't have it any other way, because an easy victory is no victory at all. Bucky flexes his fingers again as they hurtle into the Clark chicane bend and Steve begins to pull away on the straight.

Vettel is creeping up behind him, the sharp nose of his car scenting for a weakness, a gap in Bucky's airtight defence to be able to squeeze past and claim second, but there's none. Bucky is so tight against Steve, the pair of them so locked in the fight for pole that it feels like there's no one else on the track at all. Just the two of them, playing a game of children's tag with their cars, one edging in front of the other until the gap closes again. He's laughing, enjoying it - freaking Clint out ever so slightly over the intercom, because someone laughing like a maniac whilst driving a car at well over 200 mph around a track with more bends than wet spaghetti is always more than a touch alarming to listen to - but he's never been able to emulate Steve's cool, focused intensity on the track. Bucky is the live wire, the wild card - the driver who is either spectacular or a liability. He doesn't do calm and collected. He's not built that way.

There's a wobble with the engine - a slight stutter, a tiny shudder from one of the fuel injectors - that has Clint calling him over the intercom to come to the pits. Over Bucky's dead body, he hisses back, pushing the engine harder as Steve notices the weakness behind him and slacks off for a fraction of a second - long enough for Bucky to squeeze past and, for a glorious second, to take pole before Steve is catching him up again and overtaking. It doesn't matter. Steve knows now, if he didn't before, that this is on. They've been almost toying with each other for the whole race so far, but now it's serious. The lead slipped from one to the other for less than a fifth of a second, but Bucky's heart is pounding and he can almost hear Steve recalibrating in his cockpit, refocusing, pushing himself harder.

The little guy is full of that fight, that brilliant sun-bright fire, on and off track. Bucky sees it most when they're wrangling for pole, sure, but in the after parties - when Steve is around drivers like Hodge, who abuse their mechanics and their status as number one team drivers, who treat the girls hanging around like holes to fuck (even if most of the girls treat themselves that way, always hanging off the driver's shoulders and pressing scantily-clad groupie bodies against them), and his blood's up and his fists are ready to swing. Bucky is usually the one to drag him out of those fights, to go find Wilson so Steve can work off some of that fractious post-race energy against his boyfriend's body, with hot hands and hotter kisses that get Bucky wanting to outdo him in _every_ way possible. Theirs is a competitive sort of friendship; half a joke, half deadly serious. They're always pushing each other, always trying to get that upper hand. Sam, Steve's mechanic-slash-boyfriend, and Clint, Bucky's definitely-only-a-mechanic, think it's hilarious. Their team managers, not so much. But who cares about the guys in the suits?

The final lap sees Bucky as tight behind Steve as ever, barely nudging ahead, when his engine - never the most reliable of the whole team's, and certainly less so than Steve's SF15-T Ferrari - suffers a fuel injector slipping into the throttle slides and jamming the throttle wide open. Clint, watching him with his eagle's eye from the pit lane, immediately notices and calls him in again, more tenaciously this time - but he's too far away, the car is at full speed and his control over it is rapidly unspooling. The rubber tirewall is approaching at a speed that is quite frankly terrifying. It's all Bucky can do to wrench the wheel around and guide himself into a spin that has him hitting it backwards before the car gives a lurch and he is almost flipped. He tucks himself as far down into the cockpit as he can - bunching his too-large, stocky body into the smallest ball he can manage - to brace against the impact before managing to spring out of the car with the engine still running and oil coolers ripped off.

A live wire, a risk taker, he might be, but he doesn’t dare drive any further. With a few choice words for the McLaren engineers over the intercom - which he can hear Clint censoring in relaying the message, which only makes him swear harder - he storms into the pit lane and almost _throws_ his helmet at his mechanic, approaching Clint with a wrath that could burn down a city. Clint, used to his temper, only raises an eyebrow and reminds him of the cameras trained on him and the fact that his helmet is no longer there to muffle the blue streak he's cursing into the air. Bucky glowers, and stands by the pit fencing to watch Steve, the bastard, pull smoothly into first place as the checkered flag waves, whole seconds ahead of Hamilton and Rosberg in second (now that Bucky's out) and third.

He spits angrily on the pit floor and stomps away.  
  


* * *

  
The after party is wild, as most F1 after-parties are; Bucky has a girl on each arm, neither of them his girlfriend, and Steve is laughing and rolling his eyes at Bucky's shameless lack of decorum as he grinds against them both on the dancefloor, whiskey in hand, sweaty hair plastered to his forehead and shirt open halfway to his navel as the girl pressed against his back runs her hands over the sticky skin of his chest. He shoots Steve a sloppy grin and takes another swallow of whiskey; presses his crotch harder against the girl in front of him and cups her hips, encouraging her to press back against him. He can tell she's wet and ready, and his blood is singing for the hotel room and a night of working this sexual energy off with whoever he can convince to come back with him, but there are cell phone cameras everywhere and too many paparazzi around for him to get away with it.

Steve, meanwhile, is pressed against Sam, skinny body grinding up against his boyfriend's with his characteristic lack of all sense of rhythm. Sam is laughing, pretending to push back, and Steve is mimicking the girls' over-exaggerated faces of absolute lust as he crosses his eyes and opens his wet, red mouth. The club is pounding with loud music, the floor vibrating with the bass beats; he's had too many vodka and cokes - they've all had too much to drink, but it's the first race of the season and they always go a little wild for the first and last races.  There are flashes of cameras and strobe lights painting his skin in sudden bursts of light like fireworks exploding over his body. Sam pulls him away, shaking his head fondly, towards the bar, and Steve follows, trailing after him like a sweaty blond puppy.

Clint comes over a couple of moments later, drink in hand, with a few other mechanics, Bruce, Phil and McLaren's head engineer, Tony. Bucky doesn't turn the girls away, doesn't even stop them rubbing themselves against him - just stands there and has the conversation, occasionally pushing back or forwards against their warm bodies, and smirking at Clint's raised eyebrows and 'I'm-so-tired-of-your-shit-Barnes' expression.

"You look like you're enjoying yourself," Clint says, voice deadpan.

Bucky smirks, brushes his sweaty bangs out of his face, and nods. "It's a party. Ain't that what I'm s'posed to be doing?"

Tony rolls his eyes. "You could afford to enjoy yourself a little less, maybe." He shoots a pointed look at the girls. It's more than a little rich, coming from Tony, who has the reputation of having been equally as wild as Bucky - likely more so - a few years back before his now-wife Pepper came onto the scene and straightened him out, but Bucky only laughs and flips him the bird.

"Killjoy," Bucky laughs. He turns to Bruce beside Tony, smirking wider at the expression of prudish disapproval on the mechanic's pinched features. "If you're jealous, Bruce, I could always ask a few to take pity on you. I'm only human, after all. So many of them, only one of me."

Bruce scrunches his nose up in disgust, eyes hard. "You're an asshole, Barnes."

"Only an offer!" Bucky calls back as Bruce spins on his heel and marches away, heading for Sam at the bar. He takes Steve's seat as the blond staggers up and heads back onto the dance floor, laughing and exchanging flirtatious glances with other drivers and fans alike as he makes his way over to Bucky. He ends up pressed lightly against Phil, who looks like every Christmas has come at once, and teasingly wriggles his hips, smirking at Bucky. They're both watching Sam at the bar, who is almost busting a lung laughing at the expression on Phil's face, and Steve grins at him.

Bucky can't help being almost jealous of Steve and Sam's relationship - so secure in one another's feelings for them that flirting and dancing with other people is par for the course. They both know the only one the other will be taking home at the end of the night is them. Bucky, on the other hand, intends to make the most out of his freedom after his most recent breakup, and is fully prepared to take as many girls back as he can humanly get through in one night. (Steve teases him about his insatiable appetite - he even bought Bucky a sew-on patch with the words _SEX: THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS_ on it, which he then sewed onto his racing overalls - but it's really not about him at all. He's not incapable of monogamy; he just likes to bring as many people as possible as much pleasure as possible in the bedroom. That's where his satisfaction comes from, and it keeps the tabloid journalists in business.)

"Are you torturing the mechanics again?" he laughs, and Phil nods from behind him, hands tentatively wandering to Steve's hips. The blond grins over his shoulder, but gently removes them, and Coulson nods respectfully before backing off. Steve turns to Bucky and raises his eyebrows in expectation of an answer.

"Maybe a little. But if Bruce wasn't such a prude, it wouldn't be any fun."

Steve sighs, rolling his eyes. "Some people like only having one partner at a time, Buck."

"Contrary to popular belief, smartass, I am actually capable of holding down a steady relationship. I'm just enjoyin' my night whilst I'm _not_ in one at the moment," Bucky defends himself.

"You don't have to be an asshole to Bruce about it, though. Yeah, he could do with loosening up on the morals if he's gonna be spending any time around _you_ ," he grins wickedly at Bucky, "but you don't gotta antagonise him all the time, either."

"Fine, fine," Bucky groans, waving Steve away, and the blond just laughs and rolls his eyes.

"You ain't gonna take any of that on board, are you?"

"Nope."

"Well, at least we can both say I know you too damn well." Steve grins, and Bucky smirks back. He loves how easy he and Steve are with each other off track; all the playful teasing, innuendos, and the comfort and familiarity. Steve does know him too well; inside out, he'd wager. Bucky, on the other hand, feels like even though he and Steve spend nearly all their on-season time together, there's still a lot of Steve Rogers he doesn't know. Steve's incredibly open about superficial things, but still waters run deep, as they say, and everything else is kept such a mystery that Bucky doesn't think he's ever going to really get to know the guy.

Sam comes back over after waving goodbye to Bruce, and asks if Steve's ready to hit the hay for the night. Steve nods, pulling him in for a kiss, and says goodbye to Bucky with a quick one-armed hug before he and Sam make their retreat.

Bucky finds himself staring at Steve as they leave, seeing nothing but those plush open lips from before, the girl against his front - how had he forgotten about them? - smiling coyly and reaching back to run her hand over his ass as he twitches in his pants - he grabs her chin and turns her face to his, bites hungrily at her lips, and she moans and presses herself tighter against him, and that's it. He needs his hotel room, needs her spread out and screaming beneath him - anything to chase away the images of Steve's wet, open mouth and the sounds of his panting as he exerts himself against another hard masculine body.  
  


* * *

  
Malaysia and China see both of them climbing the leaderboard in leaps and bounds, fastest qualifying laps and podium finishes establishing them firmly in first and second place by Bahrain. Steve's driving is as calm, precise and smooth as ever, a master at the wheel and perfectly piloting his car around the tight curves and hairpins of difficult Asian tracks; Bucky, as usual, is conversely a loose cannon.

The checkered flag of the Spanish Grand Prix waves over Steve in pole and Bucky, a single point behind him, in second on the grid. Spanish May is wet around them, several teams having changed from soft yellow dry tires to the treaded green prior to the race. Only Bucky, Steve, and Kvyat of Team Red Bull were in dries. Steve catches Bucky's eye moments before the flag waves, a minute nod of his head in the brilliant red, white and blue helmet - a nod to his American nationality whilst sharing the design of his British team - and Bucky raises a hand in salute before the flag is rippling in the air and they're roaring away from the starting line, Steve already carefully zipping around the first crooked corner.

Clint is warning Bucky to be careful on this track, with all of its tight left-handed chicanes and hairpins, the sixth-gear blind corner at Campsa just asking for a wide run or a crash at the bottom - his tone is especially sharp and addressed to Bucky at that point, who infamously on his first testing run at Barcelona-Catalunya did exactly that, shunting right into the back of then-teammate Hamilton - and he can hear Alonso laughing over the intercom. A flash of anger, brilliant red in the corners of his vision, tempts Bucky to lap the bastard just to do the same to him before focusing on following Steve, almost clipping his rear wheel as he throws himself too-hard around the bend in an attempt at overtaking.

Hamilton is skirting his back constantly, trying to nudge ahead, and Bucky growls warningly, making Clint laugh.  
"Alright, big guy, take it easy. Just focus on Rogers. We get pole in this, you've overtaken him on the leaderboard and McLaren are set for first overall."

"Tell me somethin' I don't know," Bucky answers, teeth gritted in concentration. Steve is looking weak as he takes the next bend, an unusually wide pass around the track, almost wide enough to send him onto the astroturf; Bucky sees the chance and takes it, roaring into pole and laughing with victory as he screams down the pit straight for the fifty-third lap.

Steve is chasing first place - always a fraction of a second, a fraction of an inch, behind Bucky, infuriating for him but making Bucky grin inside his helmet - when Alonso, angling for another Team McLaren podium placement and apparently a broken nose, hurls himself too-fast around La Caixa and into the side of Bucky's MP4-30, shearing the wheels off the right side and sending himself rocketing into the walls of the chicane feet down the track. Bucky spins off the track and onto the astroturf, seeing not the green of the grass but red - fury soaking every inch of his body as he vaults out of his ruined car and runs - straight down the track, not even seeing the other drivers swerving to avoid him, ignoring Clint's furious _Barnes, what the fuck are you doing - Barnes, don't you fucking dare - God damn it, Barnes, you're asking for a race suspension - GET BACK IN YOUR FUCKING CAR, YOU LUNATIC_ \- until he sees Alonso bending over the wreckage of his car pensively. He doesn't hesitate; pulls back his fist and punches Alonso in the face, unprotected where his helmet is resting on the seat of his car to improve his vision. Bucky is screaming at him, several long and creative curses along the lines of _You useless fucking prick, what were you fucking doing_ \- when the marshals come and drag him away.

He's still fuming when he's in front of the McLaren bosses in the pits, being yelled at for thirty minutes straight, as he glowers furiously at the podium, upon which Steve stands in first, flanked by Rosberg and Hamilton. He grits his teeth as Steve gives him a little wave, grinning, and fights the urge to flip him the bird over Fury's shoulder.

Steve laughs.

Bucky is finally allowed to go after being warned that he has been disqualified from the race and that his accrued points are null and void - a harsh blow, given that the crash was no fault of his own and therefore, he feels, the anger at his teammate was warranted - but he's permitted to attend the afterparty. At least, on the condition that nothing like the on-track events occurs between himself and Alonso, should the Spaniard be unfortunate enough to cross his path. Bucky growls that he's making no promises before Clint forces a smile and kicks him unsubtly, promising that he'll keep Bucky under control and warn the rest of McLaren to keep Alonso as far away from the pair of them as possible.

Steve approaches them in the pits not long after, still smiling. He throws an arm around Bucky, soaked and sticky with victor's champagne, and Bucky groans, wiping his damp sleeve over Steve's face. Steve laughs and licks the champagne off his lips, and Bucky has to fight down another, entirely different groan. Clint is watching them with narrowed eyes - particularly Bucky - but he lets them go after a warning that if Bucky even looks at Alonso again tonight he will be strapped down in his car harness until the next race. Steve laughs.

"Don't say that, he's probably into it."

"Wouldn't you like to know, Rogers," Bucky retorts, and Steve laughs.

" _There's_ the Bucky we all know and... well, we all know."

"Fuck you!"  
  


* * *

  
The first thing Steve does at the after party - once he's got Bucky mellowed a little, a glass of whiskey in his hand and a stool at the bar, is check him over. There's gentle hands on his neck, soft grip around his wrists as he rubs at the delicate bones, and his voice is concerned as he asks "You didn't get hurt in the crash, did you?"

Bucky rolls his eyes and scrubs his knuckles over Steve's blond mop, laughing. "Hale and hearty and ready to drink you under the table as ever, Rogers. Now quit behavin' like my ma and drink up, we've got dancin' to do."

"You know I don't dance," Steve argues, but his eyes are twinkling and he's downing his rum and coke with ease. Bucky raises an eyebrow.

"Tell that to Sam's nuts. You seemed pretty happy to be dancin' and grindin' yourself up against them last week in Bahrain."

Steve blushes, but shrugs with a wicked grin. "Sometimes I just can't help myself when there's a handsome man there."

Bucky pretends to pout. "How come I've never been treated to a Steve Rogers vertical lap dance, then?"

"I have t'look at your ugly mug all the time," Steve teases, "I got higher standards than that."

Bucky just flips him off, laughing, and heads onto the dance floor where he can see Sam, Clint and Phil chatting, ignoring the girls fluttering hopefully around them as they engage in what is highly likely to be incredibly boring grease-monkey talk. He rolls his eyes, threading his arm around the waist of one of the girls and shooting her his most brilliant smile. She beams back, batting her eyelashes, and he gives a tired internal sigh before pressing a kiss to her temple.

"They borin' you, darling? They don't know how to treat a lady, clearly, leavin' you beautiful girls to entertain yourselves instead of askin' you for a dance. You dance, sweetheart?"

"Sure," she breathes, pressing herself a little closer, and he plasters a grin on and wraps his arms around her waist.

"Let's go."

Steve comes to claim Sam a few moments later, and both he and Bucky are pounding the tiles with their partners, Bucky hugging the girl close as she rubs herself against him, and Steve half-bent over as he grinds his ass back against Sam's front, all but giving him a goddamn lap dance right there on the floor. Sam winks at Bucky and shrugs.  
"It's the only move he has."

"Lies and slander!" Steve protests as he straightens up, and Sam laughs, wrapping his arms around Steve's waist.

"Baby, I love you, but it's true. You're a shit dancer."

Steve shrugs. "I have fun. 'S what it's about anyway, right?" He smiles and presses his lips to Sam's, and they spend a few (long, it seems to Bucky; far too long) moments necking on the dancefloor like teenagers before Sam pulls away, carding a hand through Steve's tousled, sweaty hair. The expression in Steve's eyes - wide, blue, adoring - makes Bucky's heart clench and a sour, angry taste flood his mouth. He shakes his head to clear it, and the girl against his front kisses him with her mouth sticky with lipgloss. It's all he can do not to groan and push her away in disgust. He's always hated that gluey shit on his skin, and the taste of it is, if possible, even worse. Plastic and wax and fake scented like raspberries, the kind of stuff his sister gummed her mouth with when she was twelve. Christ, how old was this girl?

"Hey, Steve," Bucky interjects, "how come I've not had one those yet?"

"Aw, baby," Sam teases, laughing, "you're in demand."

"All you had to do was ask, Barnes," Steve grins, and takes over from the girl, his body slick with sweat and surprisingly fluid in its movements against Bucky. He presses his ass back and tosses his head back onto Bucky's shoulder, hands running hungrily over Bucky's thighs and backside, and there's a horrifying definite twitch of interest in Bucky's pants - more than a twitch. He's rock hard in seconds, and he can see Steve grinning to himself, a blush rising on his cheeks, as Bucky moans under his breath and tentatively presses forward, hands on Steve's hips to pull him flush against him. They dance like that for several minutes, Bucky so hard it hurts, and Steve laughing and teasing him even worse.

Sam is almost choking, he's laughing so hard. Eventually he takes Steve's wrists and smiles down at him, eyes sparkling. "Okay, okay, baby, I think that's enough. Let the poor guy breathe."

"You gettin' jealous?" Steve asks, grinning, but there's a spark of something in his eyes as he looks up at Sam - something that catches Bucky's eye and makes his aroused blush drain away from his face like someone's pulled a plug - and Sam cocks his head in confusion for a moment before catching on.

"Sure am," he says easily, pulling Steve closer - away from Bucky. The whole situation is weird - Steve seems to be wanting Sam to be jealous, Sam is trying to play along, and Bucky is feeling used and still achingly hard in his jeans. He mutters an excuse before heading for the bar, determined to drown whatever confused feelings these are in the bottom of a bottle of the most expensive alcohol he can charge to McLaren's tab.


	2. Heat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again beta'ed by [Mai](http://perfbucky.tumblr.com). An actual angel, people.
> 
> Any mistakes remaining are mine!

Within days, the sports pages of the newspapers are reporting nothing but the rivalry of McLaren and Ferrari in this season's Grand Prix, always with photographs of podiums - Bucky in first (or 'pole', as the commentators call it), Steve in second; Steve in pole, Bucky in second, always grinning at each other with barely-disguised competitive pleasure, joy at a race well won and hard-fought - and quotes from each of them beneath, promises to beat the other to the title. The season continues much as it began, with the pair of them only one point apart, grazing the top of the leaderboard; two all but newcomers. Bucky has the tendency to set lap records on every track he hits, while Steve, more careful and focused, wins the races instead. But there's never anything between them other than as a fierce, loyal respect - two drivers who acknowledge the other's skill and drive to be the best.

In the Ferrari pit lane one afternoon after a race (where Bucky technically shouldn't have been, but Steve was the golden boy and lead driver of Ferrari and thereby able to get away with all but murder, and so by invitation Bucky was grudgingly allowed to stay), Sam told them that there was not only an unofficial betting pool running amongst the mechanics of _every_ team as to which of them would ultimately end up finishing in overall pole position. Toro Rosso, Williams, Mercedes and of course Ferrari all had their money on Steve, while McLaren, Red Bull and Lotus were backing Bucky. Force India and Marussia were staying out of proceedings because the mechanics couldn't decide. Sam also said that the majority of the mechanics had placed sneaky unofficial bets with real bookies as to which of them would come out on top. Although Steve was concerned that the mechanics in question would lose their jobs should the secret be discovered by the F1 bigwigs, he thought it was hilarious; Bucky, laughing, did a lap of the Ferrari pits jokingly offering to bribe people to bet on him.

Hungary is the race that changes everything. The track is dry - not a drop of rain in sight - but as the main body of drivers edge around the vicious pointed turn at the first corner of the track. Hodge in his Toro Rosso STR-9 loses control and flips, spinning in midair over the metal track barriers to land upside-down, caught by the rear spoiler on the barrier wall. Bucky is way ahead in front, behind Steve and Alonso; there's an angry yell from his teammate through the intercom as Steve suddenly slows down before he sees the tiny blond body hurling himself out of the cab of the car and sprinting down the track, shoving confused marshals out of the way to approach Hodge's car. It's smoking dangerously, seconds away from erupting into flames; Bucky slams on the brakes, feeling his neck jolt and scream in protest, before he's following suit. He chases Steve down the track and the pair of them wrestle the unconscious, heavy Hodge out of his car a split second before, with a roar of igniting fuel, the car bursts into flames.

Steve throws himself over Hodge to protect him from the flames - his tiny body doing barely anything to protect the other man's muscular bulk - but Bucky feels something in his chest bloom, a warm, desperately protective fluttering, as he drags the pair of them, Steve and Hodge, to a safe distance where the marshals and ambulance team will be able to reach him. His eyes are rolling in pain in his helmet, weak groaning noises issuing from his mouth - but he's conscious again, alive, and able to express it. Bucky reaches down to remove the helmet, but Steve stays his hand.

"No! Leave it on. If his neck is injured, you'll make it worse trying to pull his helmet off." His eyes are terrified, wide and white-rimmed around the blue irises, but his voice is a slightly tremulous calm. "My mom was a nurse. Trust me, she knew what she was doing and when I could be bothered to listen, I picked up a lot of it. Just wait for the ambulance guys."

Bucky nods, and crosses the astroturf to stand at the barrier, waving the marshals and medics over. Steve kneels beside Hodge, talking to him in his soft, calm voice to make sure he's still lucid; Hodge barely manages three words in coherent answers, but the ambulance team are so grateful to Steve that one of them, a pretty nurse with carnation-red lips and soft brown eyes gives him a hug and a clipped, British-accented "Thank you. You probably saved his life." She looks at Bucky. "Both of you."

Steve just glances back at her. "Nobody deserves to die like that. Can't imagine anything worse. Will you let us know how he does at the hospital? Please?"

"Of course," she nods, and smiles. "You're heroes, the pair of you."

"No, ma'am," Steve shakes his head, "I'm just a kid from Brooklyn."

The race is called off, and the drivers are told that there will be no podium presentations. Rosberg storms up to the marshals in a temper and demands that they hold a podium, and he's condemned for his insensitivity until he runs up there himself and invites Bucky and Steve to stand up, announcing to the whole stadium - not that anyone could possibly have missed it - that the pair of them were first on the scene to pull Hodge out of the wreckage of his STR-9, leading the standing ovation. Every driver, mechanic, boss, and fan seems to take to their feet as one, and the sound of the applause seems louder in Bucky's ears even than the roar of the engines of their cars.

He glances at Steve, whose eyes are damp. Bucky takes his hand gently, squeezing affectionately, and Steve reaches for Nico's mic with the other. He's passed it with eyes full of admiration, and he clears his throat awkwardly.

"Not that we don't appreciate the applause - we absolutely do - but we didn't do anything exceptional. We helped out a fellow driver, because we were there and we could." He flashes the crowd that adorable, intoxicating Steve Rogers self-deprecating smile. "And because we're the ones stupid enough to risk throwing ourselves out of cars travelling that fast to help a guy in need. If anything, we should probably have gone to the hospital with him. Get our heads checked out."

Bucky grins at him, and Steve flashes him a smile, soft and shy. "Thank you, everyone, for your... uh, well, we're very flattered by all this... celebration. But I-"

Sam, appearing by his feet, passes him up a mobile phone; Steve glances at the screen before breaking into a smile that could melt stone. "- Gilmore has arrived at the hospital, been checked over, and we're being told that he'll make a full recovery. Unfortunately he's likely to be out for the rest of the season, but he's going to be fine." He turns to Bucky and says, quietly, "Thank God."

The cameras catch it. The stadium roaring to life, clapping and screaming at the good news. Bucky and Steve, standing on the podium, overwhelmed by the reaction of the crowds. The tears in Steve's eyes, and Sam, climbing the podium to press a hard, proud kiss to Steve's lips, the blond wrapping his arms around his boyfriend's neck and squeezing him close.

Bucky steps down and moves away, melting into the crowd, and doesn't stop until he reaches the pits, where he punches the wall hard enough to make his knuckles bruise and smart.  
  


* * *

  
The after party is a more sober affair after the events of today's race - everyone's minds still on the horrific, heart-stopping accident befalling Hodge on the twentieth lap. The last time an accident like that had been seen, it had been François Cevert, still held in his seat by his harness, limp and lifeless inside his Tyrrell in 1976. _Thank God it hadn't reached that stage_ , Bucky thinks, and shakes the mental image out of his head. His father had told him about that race; showed him the tapes, the first time Bucky came home telling his parents that he wanted to race cars for a living. He's pretty sure it was meant to put him off, and it certainly left its mark - nightmares, a heart-clenching fear every time even the slightest rattle in the engine happened during a race - but it hadn't been enough to stop him.

Steve is shaken, though, he can tell. His face is paler than ever, and there's a tremor in his hands. Sam is closer, more protective than usual; Bucky can't blame him. Steve is so tiny, so fragile - if it had been him in that car, it would've been a fatality. Easily. The thought makes him feel sick. Accidents like these happened in the old days of Formula One, when drivers did what they wanted and health and safety guidelines consisted of 'Stay on track and wear your helmet and try not to die', instead of the hundred-page brick contracts they are nowadays. But Sam will calm Steve down, he'll look after him, there's nothing to worry about. He distracts himself with glasses of whiskey, smooth and hot going down his throat, and lets the flush of alcohol keep him warm and calm in the middle of the hall.

After a couple of hours, he realises he might've gotten a bit - a _lot_ \- more drunk than he intended. All he had wanted was to forget the sight of Hodge, limp and unresponsive, in the car, the mental images that flashed through his head of Steve, tangled in his safety harnesses and throttled by his seatbelt. He failed on that count; all that's happened is that he's gotten himself too drunk to stand, and he's hanging off Steve and half-sobbing into his ear, "Don't you never get into an accident like that, okay?"

Steve looks at him, rubs his shoulders reassuringly. He's stone cold sober, unlike Bucky, and his eyes are soft and impossibly sad as he nods. "'Course not, Buck. Can't leave you alone like that. Who'd knock some sense into your knuckle head if I ever got hurt?"

"Don't even talk 'bout it," Bucky slurs, knocking their heads together. "Pr'mise me, you ain't never gonna get hurt like that."

"Never, Buck." Steve's humouring him. He knows it. But it does make him feel better, and he nods, satisfied.

"Good."  
  


* * *

  
The next race is the Belgian Grand Prix, and it's slower. Less exciting, probably, but the drivers are all still thinking about Hodge - about the awful possibilities for disaster that the job can bring. Bucky takes pole; Steve is second, and Bucky doesn't even feel like celebrating the victory. There was an awful moment where behind him, Steve slipped into oversteer for a moment - almost went spiralling off across the track before he managed to wrestle back control - and Bucky spent the rest of the race with his heart in his mouth. There were tears trickling down his face inside his helmet; he was seeing Roger Williamson, François Cevert, Gilmore Hodge - Steve. A waking nightmare. At the end of the race, he has to stagger off track to vomit, puking his guts up as he sobs and yells at the mechanics to leave him the fuck alone whilst he fights through the panic attack.

Clint rubs his back, and he doesn't even flinch when Bucky tries to punch him to make him leave. His eyes are warm, pained and kind, and it just makes everything a thousand times worse. Bucky doesn't want to feel like this. Like he's constantly gravitating around Steve, like all he can think about are those blue eyes and that kind voice and that tiny, thin little body. He just wants to keep Steve safe, away from everything that is just waiting to kill him on track - bursting tyres that can send the car spinning, exploding engines, ruptured fuel tanks that soak the underchassis in fuel and set the car alight around him, crashes with other drivers, crashes into the barriers - but he can't. Because it's not his place, and because Steve would kill him if he ever tried to stop him from doing what he loves. The guy knows he's the underdog; the mechanics of other teams - often other drivers - call him "the runt", because of how tiny he is. It only fuels his need to prove them wrong; to shove it up their asses with a vehement "Fuck you!". It makes Bucky's chest ache.

He gets drunker than ever at the after party, and when Steve tries to engage him in their usual post-race banter - light teasing, back slaps and easy grins - he flinches away, downs his drink, orders another. He's barely vertical by the end of the night. Steve's eyes are on him all the time, narrowed and hurt, and it makes Bucky ache that he's pushing Steve away - but he has to. In a moment of madness, he's about to invite Steve and Sam to have a threesome with him - ask, and then blame it on the booze when the inevitable _Hell no, Buck, are you crazy?_ comes - but he knows damn well that it would evolve into Bucky fucking Steve senseless whilst Sam watched, both of them feeding off his jealousy, and Bucky would use it as an excuse to steal Steve out from under Sam's nose. Because whilst he is capable of moral thought, and he does have a conscience, his priorities... change when it comes to Steve Rogers.

But he bites his tongue and thinks better of it, because he can't let himself have these feelings when Steve is with Sam, and _happy_ with Sam. Because contrary to popular belief, he's not a total asshole, and he can respect other people's relationships. So he grabs the nearest girl, bends her over, and grinds against her on the dance floor for most of the night until she's dragging him outside and sitting him on one of the stairs of the fire escape before sitting herself down on his lap and fucking herself on him like he's an inanimate object. He doesn't care; he moans against her ear and gasps weakly, always biting back _that_ name, fucks his hips up, and thinks of blond hair and blue eyes and a deep, wrecked voice panting his name into his ears as they make love, slow and deep. The way he imagines Steve does with Sam.

When he comes, he cries.

The girl kisses him goodbye, running her fingers through his hair, and he just staggers upright enough to empty his guts all over the pavement. He's ugly crying, snot smeared all over his face and tears dripping down his cheeks, when Steve finds him, and he wants to die. Because of course it would have to be Steve who comes to fetch him, who leans him against his thin body and rubs his back and sighs gently, generally treating Bucky like a small child.

"Hey, hey. C'mon, I think someone needs to go home."

"I don' wanna go h-home," Bucky hiccups, "y-you ain' at home." He looks up at Steve, eyes struggling to focus, and feels Steve's cool palm brush his fringe out of his eyes. Steve's lips are soft against his forehead as he smiles softly.

"You wanna go back to the hotel, then?"

"Yeah." He's disgusting. He needs a shower, and then he needs to sleep until he forgets about ever having these thoughts about Steve - these awful, jealous, possessive thoughts. _Steve isn't yours, Barnes, and he won't be while he still has Sam. And if you really love him, you won't fuck that up for him. Because he deserves better than that, better than you, and you know it_.

"You want me to stay? Look after ya, you big lug?" He hears the affection in Steve's voice. Of course he means it kindly, and oh, God, Bucky loves him. This is a disaster. He's drunk as hell. An even bigger disaster. Jesus, he's going to be lucky if Steve ever even looks at him again after tonight. Vomit- and snot-covered is not a good look on anybody, let alone a lovesick Formula One driver who's consumed enough alcohol to down an elephant.

"...Yeah."

"Okay, Buck. Let's get you back to the hotel, then. C'mon, up you get... that's it, now, one foot in front of the other-"

"I remember how to walk, Rogers."

"Just checkin'. Jeez, big breakfast?"

"Fuck you, Steve."  
  


* * *

  
He wakes up to Satan's mother-in-law for a hangover (the worst he's ever suffered, and he's had more than his fair share), and Clint sitting on the couch at the foot of the bed watching the news channel, where there's a grainy photo of him - strategically censored - with the girl from last night bouncing in his lap. He groans, and Clint turns around.

"'Uuuggghhhhhh' is right. McLaren are pissed."

Bucky groans again, rubbing a hand over his face. "I was drunk."

"No shit. You smell like a goddamned off-licence." Clint rolls his eyes. "What happened? You never get that drunk. Not drunk enough to do it in an alley, anyway."

Bucky shakes his head, and then whimpers at the stab of pain in his head. "Don' wanna talk about it."

"Well, the McLaren bosses are pretty damn keen to, and you're in no state to make up a decent lie about it. So you're gonna tell me what happened, and I'm gonna make you a script, and you're gonna stick to it and take your punishment like a man, got it?"

"Who died and made you my mother?"

Clint smacks him around the head and glowers. "I'm serious, Bucky. They're thinking about suspending you. For a long time. It's bad publicity, and we can't afford it in the middle of the season, you know that."

Bucky sits at the breakfast bar and tries not to sway too much. He lays his head against the cool marble of the worktop and almost cries in relief; Clint settles beside him and lays his hand on his back, rubbing gently.

"What happened with Steve?"

Bucky shoots upright and yelps in pain. "Who said anythin' about Steve?"

Clint gives him a 'don't-hand-me-that-bullshit-Barnes' look. He's getting good at those, Bucky thinks sourly, and lays his head back down on the bar. He sighs.

"It... I'm... You know already, I know you know already."

"Yeah, but I need you to say it. You need you to say it. Buck, you're... this ain't the season to have troubles. You're almost at the top. This is your season, I can feel it. We all can."

"I love him," Bucky mumbles, and bites his lip. The tears are threatening again, stinging in the corners of his eyes; he's hopelessly, desperately head-over-heels for his friend, his _taken_ friend who's all but fucking married to his boyfriend, and he's completely fucking pathetic. He makes a wounded noise, and Clint rubs his back again, sighing heavily.

"I know, big guy. I'm sorry."  
  


* * *

  
Bucky is suspended for two races, Italy and Singapore, in disgrace. It would have been more, but Clint managed to spin straw into gold in regards Bucky's press excuses, and as long as he promises not to get so drunk again (and attend a private counselling session, arranged hush-hush by the team bosses and carrying the penalty of a season-wide suspension should he fail to attend), he's even allowed to attend the races, to spectate and cheer Team McLaren on.

He doesn't cheer for McLaren. Clint, looking at him, knows he wouldn't. They _all_ know he wouldn't. No, he stands in the Ferrari pits, watches Steve scream past in his pillarbox-red SF15-T, and he cheers _him_ on. He watches, ignores Sam's sharp - too sharp - eyes on his back, and hollers for Steve. He has to have new tyres fitted at one point, and he comes into the pit lane and sees Bucky there - in his Pirelli cap and his hair all tangled around his face, red and sweaty from jumping up to see past the pit walls as Steve drives past - and he flips up his visor to grin and give him a thumbs up before roaring away again. Bucky almost collapses at the rush of happiness that hits him, a brick wall for him to collide with; it's hot in his veins, flooding every inch of his body with sunlight and sparks like Steve's smile, and he beams.

In Italy, Steve soars around the track, straight into pole and onto the top spot on the podium. He looks right at Bucky as he beams and sprays the crowd with the champagne, laughing; he holds out his hand and tries to encourage Bucky up onto the podium with him, and Rosberg on his left in third is laughing, shaking his head; Bucky says no, but his cheeks are pink with a blush and he's warm and rosy-eyed and he couldn't be happier that Steve is winning, overtaking him on the leaderboard. He doesn't care that he's going to have to drive harder than ever to win those points back, to claw his way back to second.

Clint smacks the back of his head and mimes puking. Bucky shoves him, laughing, and heads back to Team McLaren's pits, where the team, pissed that Bucky isn't cheering for his own fellow team drivers, relegate him for Singapore. He watches from the driest place he can find. Singapore is another wet race, the track so slippery with standing water that the safety cars are out for the qualifiers, and the drivers are mostly on treaded green 'wet' tyres, similar to the Spanish Grand Prix. Steve, of course, isn't. Bucky grins, sending him a mock salute, and Steve waves his hand from the cockpit in acknowledgement before the flag waves and the race roars to life.

Steve is flying, as usual, until the forty-first lap when he seems to run into trouble and is forced to come into the pits to have his car checked. He's been lapped twice before the mechanics announce, shaking their heads, that it's a gearbox problem and that they can't afford to let him back out onto the track with it; Steve's Singapore Grand Prix is, unfortunately, over.

Steve takes it with good grace, which is to say that he points an accusing finger at Bucky and laughs wryly, "You're loving this, you bastard!" before joining him in McLaren's pits to chat to Clint and Phil.

"You'll finally catch me up in the standings," Bucky teases, and Steve pokes him, smiling.

" _You'll_ catch _me_ up, you mean. Let's not forget who's in pole here."

"Not for much longer. You ready to choke in Japan? Because you'll be inhaling my dust." Bucky smirks.

"Oh, fighting talk," Steve grins. "Care to put your money where your mouth is, Barnes? Drinks on you at the after party if I win."

"Vice versa _when_ you lose. Not if, _when_."

"Deal." They shake on it, and Bucky grins at him.


	3. Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again beta'ed by [Mai](http://perfbucky.tumblr.com). An actual angel, people.
> 
> Any mistakes remaining are mine!

Qualifying in Japan brings a rainstorm like Bucky has never seen before. The track is soaking wet, water spraying off the tyres in sheets as the drivers roar around the track. Bucky sets the fastest lap time by well over 9 seconds. Steve's in fourth due to unnecessarily - in Bucky's opinion, at least - careful driving. All Bucky wants is to go out there for the main race, and take pole. Pole position, on the first race since the end of his suspension. The best way he could ever have come back. And with Steve driving like a grandpa, he's likely to do it. His blood's up, he's excited - although shaking with nerves, because you'd have to be mad not to be on a track as wet as this - and he can't wait for the flag to fall and the race to start for good.

At the end of qualifying, however, Steve is climbing out of his car and gesticulating wildly at the officials. The track, he says, is too wet. There aren't enough safety barriers in place. _This Grand Prix is an accident waiting to happen_ seems to be the general gist of the argument, and - to Bucky's endless frustration - he's being backed up by Kvyat, Rosberg and Vettel, all of whom are listening in and nodding with serious faces.

Bucky isn't about to let Steve take the best victory of his entire career out from under him. Over his dead body. So he crosses over to where they're standing by the pit lane, Steve still jabbering furiously at the race marshals, and pipes up: "If you're too scared, bow out. I'll happily take the title."

Steve rounds on him, eyes flashing. "You're a fucking lunatic, Barnes. We can't be racing in a storm like this. There's no fucking visibility at all, even the wet tires are struggling - the barriers are not enough around the 130R - Rosberg almost sent himself through it less than ten fucking minutes ago." Nico Rosberg, beside him, nods, and says in his thick German accent, "We can't race in this. It's not safe."

Steve looks triumphant. Bucky's hackles rise.

"They're not going to let us have an accident, Rogers. Not after Hungary. Christ, this track has only just been redone to put more, stronger barriers in. They've been improving it."

"Not enough," Rosberg shakes his head. "I'm sorry. I will not race in this." He hands the marshal his helmet, and walks off to the Mercedes pits where Hamilton is lounging against his car and scowling at the sky. Vettel and Kvyat look on the verge of doing the same, until Bucky throws out the accusation:

"Coward."

"Coward?" Steve spits, face reddening and fists balling by his sides. "You're calling me a fucking coward because I don't want to go out there and get myself killed - it might be fine for you, Barnes, because you - I can't risk my life in this. Driving these fucking things is dangerous enough without adding in weather that could destroy a small country. I'm not fucking driving in this. It's not happening. The race can be called off."

"I'll take that title then!" Bucky yells at his retreating back, and gets a "Fuck you, Barnes!" in response.

The marshals um and ahh about the state of the track for half an hour before the sky clears and a wind, harsh and dry, skims over the track, buffeting the flags and banners of the crowd as the safety car makes its way around the track again to check conditions. Bucky hangs back against the railings, arms folded over his chest, watching the clouds slowly dissipate as the rain stops and the sky changes from gunmetal grey to brilliant, shining blue. He throws a cocky smirk over his shoulder at Steve.

"What was that about the weather?"

Steve looks murderous as he collects his helmet and jams it on, stomping over to his car. Sebastian Vettel beside Bucky is frowning at the sky, and then at the track.

"I don't like this," he says slowly, shaking his head. "This doesn't feel right at all."

"Don't tell me Rogers got to you as well," Bucky scoffs, and collects his helmet from Clint.

Lining up on the grid, every car has been fitted with green, heavy-traction wet tyres. Bucky watches the sky as the marshal climbs to the top of his starting block, flag under his arm. The weather is drying out as the wind blows the track dry, and the friction of the cars passing over the road will only dry it out faster. Glancing back behind him, Steve is grim-faced and stoic in his car, obviously resolutely ignoring him. Bucky swallows hard - he shouldn't have pushed, and he knows he shouldn't have pushed, but Clint was right. This is his season, his time to finally take the spotlight and show the world that he's a fucking good driver capable of an overall season win - and he refuses to let Steve and his worry-worting get in his way.

He narrows his eyes and takes a deep inhale as the flag raises. He holds his breath and exhales as the flag flashes down and he peels out of the grid at full pelt, tyres skidding slightly as he gets used to the damp track before roaring easily into the lead. Steve and Nico Rosberg are holding back; they slip from second and third to fourth and fifth and further in no time at all, and Bucky is quick in establishing a two-second lead.

The track dries up, as he predicted, in no time. He's climbing further and further into the lead, and Steve is disappearing further and further behind him. He beams to himself, laughing in victory, and hollers to Clint over the intercom, a wordless whoop of joy. Clint, as freaked out as ever by Bucky's unsettling tendency to laugh like a maniac whilst driving at speeds similar to that of a small train, makes a strange noise and clicks off to talk to Alonso instead. Bucky is flying. The track disappears beneath his wheels, and there's nothing but air against his face; he's so far in the lead, no one will catch him. He's done it. The season is as good as his.

Before long, though, he can feel the laps getting slower and slower, the friction increasing, and he shouts to Clint over the roar of the engine and blowing of the wind that he wants to come in and change to dry slicks.

"You sure that's a good idea?"

"I'm only getting slower, Barton," Bucky snaps back, "and I want to beat ol' Grandpa Rogers sometime this century."

"Your call, Buck," Clint says, and Bucky resolutely forces himself not to hear the hesitation in his voice.

The change of tires seems to take forever, especially with everyone else, bar Steve and Rosberg, having clued in as well and coming in for pit stops too. Bucky is second out, behind Massa, shooting away to catch Steve by the hairpin below the underpass. He cuts past when Steve understeers and leaves a wide gap, and pelts into pole position when the unthinkable happens.

His steering - never reliable, not even in Australia in the first race of the season - cuts out. Bucky wrenches at the wheel, making the whole car - in a terrifying, seemingly slow-motion spray of debris and fuel - slam, full-sided, into the metal barriers at the top of the underpass. The car flips, over and over, and the fuel tank - shredded by the impact - is bleeding fuel all over the car. It happens in seconds. A spark of metal grating over the tarmacked roadtop, the roar of ignition, and suddenly the whole car, cockpit and bodywork and driver and all, is engulfed in roaring flames. Bucky is dazed, his left arm gone completely numb from the shoulder down - and he's watching through the flickering red mess of fire and smoke as cars shoot past. Idly he wonders where his helmet has gone; no familiar visor tinting hides his perfect view of the road.

Another jarring, back-breaking smash shunts the flaming MP4-30 what feels, to its driver, like miles down the track. Pain burns down his back, radiating through every inch of his body. The heat is unbearable. He's moaning weakly, pinned, helpless, breathing hot air like inhaling flames, and he's being scorched, being burned alive. He's dying, there's no other way to describe it. He has to resign himself to it. He almost does, until he hears the familiar deep voice, hoarse and rough with panic.

Steve's hand closes around his jacket, pulls. He is jerked out of the car with a strange sensation of something cracking - or is that the noise? Steve drags him away from the burning car, sits with Bucky's head cradled in his lap. Speaks to him, things he already knows. Things like, _you're safe. I've got you_.

Bucky wants to say, _I know_. It comes out sounding strange. But he does know. He will always be safe if Steve has him.  
  


* * *

  
Steve passes. He sees it.

Bucky's McLaren is just one enormous, mangled ball of flames, a blaze so hot he can feel it on his skin as he passes. He doesn't even think before wrenching the handbrake so hard it almost snaps off in his hand, stomping on the brake pedals. He can't think of anything but the blind panic at seeing Massa trying to reach into the inferno that is Bucky's car and having to retreat seconds later, beating frantically at his arms where they're coated in burning fuel. He throws himself out of the car - balls himself up to cushion the blow of impact against the blacktop, doesn't even think about the car's engine still running and potentially going rogue against another driver - and sprints, hurling himself down the track, panic making his lungs burn and his eyes water as he concentrates on getting to that car before Bucky burns to death.

The on-track police are swarming around the car, creating human barriers to prevent anyone from approaching. Steve rips his helmet off, screaming at them - _LET ME IN THERE, LET HIM OUT, DON'T JUST FUCKING STAND THERE, YOU'RE KILLING HIM - LET ME IN - DON'T YOU **DARE** FUCKING TELL ME TO MOVE AWAY - I **DON'T CARE** HOW DANGEROUS IT IS, HE'S DYING, HE'S FUCKING **ON FIRE** , ARE YOU **BLIND**_ \- before punching the guy in the face - fighting his way past the cops, the marshals running, too late, to the scene, and throws himself against the chassis of Bucky's burning car.

Massa is searching for a fire extinguisher. Steve reaches into the car - feels the heat, blistering, though his overalls and on the millimetre-thin strip of exposed skin between his gloves and sleeves - and fumbles with the buckles of Bucky's harness. Bucky's helmet is almost hanging off, revealing the neck and mouth cover of his flame-retardant balaclava, and he's limp in the seat. His arm is entangled in the metalwork of the car, knotted into the harness and speared by a strip of metal like a kebab on a skewer. Vomit rises in Steve's stomach, tears prickling at his eyes, and he's screaming, over and over, Bucky's name, fighting to release him from the wreckage. Eventually, he gives an almighty yank and manages to pull Bucky free - forcing himself not to look at the arm, not wanting to know what saving Bucky's life has done to his body.

He sits by the track, cradling Bucky's head in his lap, Steve's burned hands - where did his gloves go? - pressed against his cheeks, tears dripping over his friend's forehead. Hadn't he said? Hadn't he warned everyone, _this track is an accident waiting to happen, it's too dangerous, we can't race on this_? He'd been expecting it. He had a feeling something horrific was going to happen. The worst thing that could ever happen in one of his races, where he (because the thought of it happening to anyone else didn't even strike him) could end up dead in a pile of burning wreckage like the remnants of Bucky's MP4-30. It had happened to Bucky instead. It was his friend, his strong, capable, idiotic, reckless friend laying with his head in his lap and Steve crying hysterically over his face.

"Buck - Buck, c'n ya hear me? C'mon, Buck, talk to me - talk - you're okay, you're okay, I've got ya - the ambulance will be here soon - fuck, why's it not here already - Buck, c'mon, wakey wakey, talk t'me-"

"C'n... c'n let go," Bucky mumbles in his lap, eyelids drifting, and Steve's heart clenches.

"No, no - don't you dare - don't you dare let go, fuck, Bucky, you stupid bastard - you son of a bitch - I warned you - I said it was too dangerous - don't you dare let go, Bucky Barnes, don't you dare fuckin' leave me here - you ain't leavin' me like this, you ain't, you can't - don't you dare - Buck - Bucky -"

The ambulance crew arrive. Bucky is lucid, at least to the point where he hears his name and makes noises that sound like words in response - he can manage Steve's name, and 'can let go', and Steve refuses because there's no way he's letting go of that poor, mangled, torched hand, not even to have his own burns treated - never - and the ambulance crew eventually have to sedate him to prevent an asthma attack or worse. Bucky is coughing, coughing - and suddenly he's lolling against the bed, eyes rolling, and he's still coughing and it's coming up black, black with blood, and Steve is screaming, pleading with him, _you can't die, Buck, no, not like this_ -  
  


* * *

  
No podium again. Not even for the hero of the hour. It's Rosberg again who leads the stadium in a moment of silence for Bucky - because how can it be anything other than a fatal accident? - and a tear-filled round of applause for Steve, during which Sam - tears pouring down his face - claps hardest, loudest and longest.

The after party is cancelled.

There is no news from the hospital.


	4. Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again beta'ed by [Mai](http://perfbucky.tumblr.com). An actual angel, people.
> 
> Any mistakes remaining are mine!

The hospital room is cold, white and clinical whenever Steve visits. It never changes. But then, he's sure that any hospital in the world would feel stagnant, airless, as though the occupant were only waiting for death, if it held Bucky in his current condition. Steve murmurs his usual soft, choked hello, and plonks himself down on the hard plastic chair beside Bucky's bed, taking his hand as he always does and listening to the beeping of the heart monitor.

Bucky's chest rises and falls slowly and steadily, as though he is only asleep; deeply asleep. The machine doing his breathing for him is hooked up to a tube which fits between his lips, held on with a strap around his head that puts Steve in mind of a gag - something to keep him silent and subdued, rather than keeping him alive. The nasal cannula puts him in mind of similar things. Steve hates hospitals. Having been in and out of them as a child, always with this or that debilitating disease wracking his tiny, frail frame. He never expected himself to one day be sat beside Bucky's hospital bed, clinging to his hand, and witnessing his best friend being unable to breathe for himself, or be without functioning kidneys. But here he is. His worst nightmare realised right in front of his disbelieving eyes.

He watches Bucky's breathing as he lays his head on the pillow beside him, careful to avoid knocking or tangling the various wires and tubes feeding in and out of Bucky's body. His hand clutches Bucky's even tighter, running his thumb over the back of his friend's tanned hand, tears trailing over his cheeks as he stares at the empty space in the bed where Bucky's left arm should be. It's his fault it's missing; it's his fault that Bucky had been trapped, burning alive, in that wreckage, and that his arm had been irreparably mangled when Steve had pulled him out. Deep down, he knows that he saved Bucky's life; what he doesn't know, is whether Bucky will thank him - or hate him for having taken away the only thing he cared about: his job.

Because how is he going to race in Formula One with only one arm?

The guilt is a familiar friend at this point. Steve stares at Bucky, barely seeing, and rests his head on the pillow, listening to the beeping of the machines and the slow, robotic whooshing of Bucky's artificial breathing. He talks to him softly, all manner of things, but mostly "I'm sorry," over and over until he can't say anything. He just sits with tears in his eyes, and waits. Hoping.

There have been other visitors for Bucky. Massa came first, red-eyed and sick with guilt, to apologise a thousand times for running into the back of Bucky's car when he shot around the bend, unable to see the flaming debris of car and driver until it was too late. Steve was furious, screaming at him that Bucky could've been killed, that if the fire hadn't got him (and it nearly had), then Massa's FW37 crashing at 230 mph into the back of him would've done it. It was sheer dumb luck, and Steve's quick thinking, that prevented a disaster, he hollers, and Massa leaves whey-faced and trembling, tears in his eyes. Steve feels as though he's been poisoned. As though this angry, bitter thing inside him has gnawed all of Steve Rogers away and is hungrily reaching for more targets, spewing these words out of his mouth. It's not Massa's fault, and he knows it. But he's angry, and terribly, sickeningly guilty, and he wants everyone who witnessed Bucky's suffering to feel it along with him. He can't bear this on his own.

A priest was next, called by the hospital. Sombre and dolorous in his black cassock, bible in his hands as he stood by Bucky's bedside, palm on Bucky's forehead, to administer the last rites. Steve asked him to leave as politely as he could manage, gritting his teeth in a forced smile as he held the door open. He insisted that thank you for coming, but Bucky wasn't going to die and that he had no right to be in there saying so, and glowered at the nurses through the panel in the door as they hovered outside worriedly. He ended up standing watch by the door, a cornered animal, keeping one wary eye on Bucky's beeping machines and the steady slow rise and fall of his chest and the other on the nurses, fluttering around their workstations like moths around a lightbulb.

One of the doctors tries to convince him to pull the plug. Bucky is never going to be able to breathe properly again. Bucky is being poisoned by his own lungs, because the chemical fumes are still trapped there and his kidneys are being overloaded with toxins in his bloodstream. Bucky is deteriorating, and he's showing fewer and fewer signs of life. The medically induced coma is a kindness, to save him the trauma of being awake to feel the third-degree burns that stretch over most of his left side, but it can't last forever. Steve punches the doctor in the face, and the police _are_ called this time. He gets an official police warning, a three-race suspension from his team, and a talking-to from the team bosses. It goes in one ear and out the other; everything they threaten him with, he would happily give up just to have Bucky's eyes open. The bosses are left to accept that the race suspension means nothing to Steve, who would have pulled out of the USA, Mexican and Brazilian Grands Prix anyway to stay with Bucky. The bosses leave with the same promise that Steve makes everyone: that he won't leave Bucky, not now, not until he's sure that his friend is not only alive but healthy.

Visiting hours being officially over heralds the arrival of nurses, small and mighty in their uniforms, to chivvy Steve out. Sam is, as always, waiting for him outside; his eyes, more and more tired every time he has to come and drag Steve away from Bucky's hospital bed, are ringed in dark circles and speak of sleepless nights. Steve gives him the same answer as he does the nurses: "I won't leave him."

Strangely, the nurses are more insistent than Sam. He eventually stops asking. Then he stops coming altogether. Steve just curls up in the hard, uncomfortable plastic chair beside Bucky's bed and hangs onto his hand throughout the night, closing his eyes for light, restless sleep that he's jolted out of by every bleep of the machines around the pair of them. His face soon reflects Sam's - sallow skin, bruised dark purple rings around his eyes and breakouts. He pays it no mind. The only thing he can focus on now is Bucky and the wait for the inevitable; healing, or death.  
  


* * *

  
The first thing Bucky is aware of is pain, radiating from the centre of his chest like a fire inside his ribcage. He coughs and forces himself upright in bed, at which point he forgets about the coughing - lungs still burning, windpipe still feeling as though it's been baked and flayed - and starts to scream, because his balance pushing himself up is off and the reason for that is because there is only one arm doing so. His screaming, thin, weak and rasping, stirs the heavy weight gripping his one hand, and he stares wildly into the wide blue eyes of Steve Rogers as his breathing speeds up through panic into mind-numbing terror.

His lungs are burning, his eyes stinging, but he wrenches his hand out of Steve's - ignoring the tug of the intravenous cannula in his elbow - and claws frantically at the bandages, trying to tear them off. The hysteria rises as they fall away, and the machines are beeping angrily, alerting the nurses to his racing heart and terrifyingly shallow breathing, but he can't stop screaming as he takes in the bloody stapled mess of his shoulder, the mangled amputation that is the death of everything he knew before the accident. He screams and screams, and only stops when the nurses bring him what feels like enough sedative to down an elephant.

Steve is shaking, face as white as a sheet, and dizzy with fear as Bucky stares at him with pleading eyes. The sedative is taking effect, his heartbeat slowing to a regular, steady beeping and his eyelids drooping, but there's still a fierce, brilliant glare of terror in those blue eyes, a need for Steve to look at him and tell him that it's all a sick, twisted dream. Steve can't do that, so he sits by Bucky's bedside and ignores the tears rolling down both of their cheeks as Bucky calms to another drug-induced sleep and Steve hums tunelessly to him, running his fingers through Bucky's hair and feeling the awful guilt gnawing at his stomach.

Bucky cries in his sleep. It's torture to watch, torture of the worst kind, and Steve aches to gather him in his arms and hold him close as he did on the track. He aches to cradle Bucky's head on his shoulder, arms tight around his friend's back, and make all the promises he can't keep and have them be true. To tell him that everything will be okay, that this is only a nightmare and he will wake up and both arms will be there and he will have never crashed his car and that Steve will look after him because he's safe now and Steve isn't going to let go, no matter what Bucky says.

The night is too long by far, and morning breaks weakly through the blinds of Bucky's hospital room on Steve Rogers with his head on the pillow beside Bucky's and tear-tracks down his pale face. Bucky leans his head back against the pillow and sobs. Heartbreaking, kittenish sobs that wrack his whole body. He wishes that he'd never woken up, that the fire had gotten him; that he had died, safe in Steve's hands, there on the track in Japan. He isn't afraid of dying now. He's more afraid of living. Of having to live with this, with one arm and the spectre of a should-have-been-fatal crash hanging over his head and the knowledge that he could have died and it would have been what he wanted in that moment. Instead of the pain of being alive and aware.

The nurses come in, drawn by the speeding of his heart rate on the machine, and he turns his face away, demanding that they leave. They offer him more sedatives, and he takes them; anything to numb this, to knock himself out, to stop himself from having to be here for everything going to shit around him as he stares at his missing arm and wishes himself dead.

He drifts into another sleep, and Steve Rogers doesn't even wake.  
  


* * *

  
Bucky is released at the tail end of November, with scarred lungs that rattle with every breath (reminding Steve of himself as a child), and with a ridiculously high-tech prosthetic with plates of shining metal that whirrs softly every so often. He's quiet, subdued, when Steve ushers him into the waiting taxi cab to the accompanying blitz of paparazzi flashbulbs and their yells of 'James! James, here! How are you doing? Will you be at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix? Bucky, a photograph - James! - James!' Steve no-comments their way into the car, at which point he slams the door shut and winds up the partition.

"The driver knows where we're going."

"Which is?" Bucky asks tiredly, clenching and unclenching his fists; he winces when the prosthetic makes its whispery whirring noise and his already pale face whitens. He's not dealing with it, Steve knows. He's doing his classic Bucky Barnes thing of ignoring a problem and hoping it will go away (like the track...), and torturing himself with guilt. Steve can empathise with that last part. God, can he empathise.

"My place. Well, mine and Sam's." His voice tightens. He and Sam have barely seen one another during Bucky's recovery; Steve's refusal to leave the hospital had thrown something of a spanner in the works of that. And Sam, like it or not, is still a Team Ferrari mechanic and so has to be jetting off around the world for the various Grands Prix in between Japan and the upcoming Abu Dhabi. To be brutally honest, Steve isn't even expecting him to be there when he and Bucky arrive. He wouldn't be surprised to see Sam's bags either packed or his stuff missing from the apartment altogether. He's been a terrible boyfriend for the past two months.

He drops Sam a text, a simple _You home?._ The 'read' sign pops up a couple of seconds later, but there's no typing of a response. Not even after the hour-long cab ride from the hospital to his and Sam's smart apartment, where he helps gently wrangle Bucky out of the cab and into the elevator to head for the top floor. Bucky isn't looking at him, tension and misery rolling off him in waves, and Steve sighs quietly. He knows better than to ask, though, so he just gently takes Bucky's flesh hand and gives it a squeeze.

Helping him into the apartment, Steve settles Bucky on the couch and goes to bring his bags to the spare room before changing the bedding and fluffing the pillows. He checks that there's enough room for Bucky's things in the wardrobe, chest of drawers and nightstand, and then heads back out to the main living area to take a proper look at his friend.

Bucky is in abject misery. That much is obvious. He puts the kettle on to boil, and asks if Bucky wants a cup of tea or a glass of orange juice or anything else, trying to think what Sam, the master people-comforter, would do in this situation. He could do with having his boyfriend here to do so, in all honesty, but unfortunately Sam is out somewhere, wherever that might be, and so Bucky is all his responsibility. He makes two cups of tea, two sugars in Bucky's because he seems like he needs it, and deposits one carefully on the coffee table in front of him before sitting on the other end of the couch and gently drawing Bucky against his side with an arm around his shoulders.

Bucky is stiff as a board against him, heart rate too fast, and the metal of his prosthesis is digging uncomfortably into Steve's side. He barely notices, as he's too busy tracing his eyes over Bucky's huddled form and pressing a gentle hand to his forehead, trying to make sure it's not a fever or oncoming illness making him so quiet. His temperature feels fine (although Steve's hands are always cool, a side effect of lousy circulation), so he simply sits and drinks his tea whilst nudging Bucky's towards him with one socked foot, trying to encourage him to drink his.

Bucky can feel every inch of Steve against him, every last inch of scrawny body pressed into the hard, jagged nooks and crannies of his own figure. Steve is palpably worried about him, and there's no sign of Sam in the apartment, which only makes Bucky even more nervous. He knows Steve barely left his hospital room the past month or so. He assumed he must have seen Sam sometimes in between the accident and then, but apparently he'd been wrong if the distinct awkwardness in Steve and the coldness in the apartment is anything to go by. Sam's favourite mug is no longer on the tree by the sink, and there's no fluoro-yellow running shoes by the door. He swallows hard. It's bad enough being so hopelessly in love with Steve it's almost a joke; to have inadvertently ruined his and Sam's relationship is even worse.

"Where's Sam?" he mumbles. He's always been a glutton for punishment.

"Oh, he's around somewhere. Might've gone out for a run," Steve answers, trying for an airy tone and audibly missing by a mile. It only makes Bucky's stomach sink harder.

"Are you two... okay?"

"Sure, Buck," Steve says, with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "We're fine. Don't worry."

 _I can't help it_ , Bucky thinks, _not when I know you're lying to me_. "I know you stayed with me in the hospital a while..."

"'Course I did, you mook. I... I didn't want you to be alone in there. Hospitals are scary places."

"I would've been fine. I'm a big boy, I can handle it," he lies, and Steve's eyes, soft and sad, call him out on it right away. But he runs his fingers through Bucky's hair and pulls him a little tighter against his side, until Bucky's head is laid on Steve's shoulder and he's got his fingertip tracing the rim of Bucky's ear gently, so feather-light it tickles.

"I wouldn't've," Steve murmurs, so quietly Bucky thinks he almost imagined it. "You got no idea, Buck... no idea how scared I was that you were gonna... That the worst was gonna happen. I thought, _there's no way he's alive in there_. Police wouldn't let anyone near you in case someone else got hurt. All I could think about was gettin' you outta there, but there was somethin' in me telling me there wasn't any point because you couldn't have made it. The fire was just too hot, and you were almost upside down and Massa's car was a wreck against yours and he came outta your cockpit beating the flames off his sleeves and I just thought you were gone."

Bucky looks up at him, at those wet blue eyes and Steve's trembling lips and slowly nods. "So did I. 'Til you came and pulled me out. That's when I knew I could let go."

"Bucky..." Steve groans, his eyes filling with tears, and he grips Bucky tighter, pressing his lips to his friend's forehead fiercely. Tears trickle down Bucky's forehead, and Steve's chest is hitching with sobs, mouth breathing heavy gasps of warm air against his nose. He reaches for Steve's hand with his right hand - he's not touching Steve with that metal monstrosity, not now, not ever - and squeezes gently, giving him a weak smile when Steve's eyes flutter open and stare at him, glazed with tears.

"No, listen to me. I knew I could let go 'cause... 'cause I knew whatever happened, if you had me, I was safe. I coulda died there and I would've been happy, because Steve Rogers had me and no one, not even God, could've stolen somethin' from you that you ain't ready to let go of. You know? You're just... you're fighter enough for the pair of us, Stevie. I'm the dickhead who gets himself into these kinda pickles and you're the guy who pulls me outta them."

"Bucky," Steve sighs, and presses his mouth to Bucky's, tears fresh on his cheeks and hands gripping either side of Bucky's head. It's harsh, desperate, tear-filled and painfully sad, and it's wonderful, despite the flutter of guilt in Bucky's stomach. Steve has Sam. Steve, the paragon of strong morals and absolute fidelity, can't kiss Bucky now, with Sam - for all intents and purposes - still in the picture. But Steve's mouth is moving against his, drawing him into kisses that burned for reassurance, tear-salted and tasting of sugary tea, and Bucky finds himself kissing back, letting Steve pull him in and take what he wants. He's never been able to deny Steve anything he asks so sweetly for, and at heart, no matter how he tries to deny it, he's a wholly selfish person. He's getting everything he's ever wanted in this moment, and that's what makes it impossible to pull away.

"Thought I lost ya," Steve gasps against him, sitting back to yank his t-shirt over his head before diving back in, trailing kisses up Bucky's neck with hungry, desperate lips; Bucky moans helplessly, tipping his head back, and Steve eagerly accepts the invitation to mark him up more. "Thought - thought I lost ya-" he keeps murmuring, over and over, into Bucky's skin, and Bucky only sighs and struggles not to arch his hips as Steve unbuttons the loose shirt to bare Bucky's chest to his questing lips and searching fingers.

The burns down Bucky's side cover his left pec, trickling down over his ribs to the vee of his hipbones. His nipple is a scarred ruin, and yet when Steve takes it into his mouth - sucks on it like he's dying for the taste of Bucky on his tongue, hands frantically mapping out the tainted, twisted flesh beneath him, Bucky can almost believe that nothing has changed. Steve's hands flutter over his sides, trying to take in everything at once, and he sucks small red marks into the pale, scarred flesh under his lips with desperate sobbing noises. The endless refrain of I thought I lost you is muttered into Bucky's breastbone, his abs, his navel; whispered against his hipbones and bitten into the soft muscle just above the waistband of his jogging pants. He groans, tilting his hips up, and threads a hand in Steve's hair, toying with the silken strands gently.  
"'M right here, Steve, 'm okay..."

"Need to make sure," Steve half-sobs, tugging at his waistband, still mouthing at Bucky's abs and nosing the hard column tenting the front of his pants. "Please. Gotta make sure, gotta know you're all here with me, gotta know you're safe..."

"Steve Rogers has me," Bucky gasps, arching his hips, "I'm always safe."  
  


* * *

  
He wakes up in the spare room of Steve and Sam's apartment to the sound of muffled sobs coming from the master bedroom. Heavy-hearted, he swings his legs out of bed and adjusts his pyjama pants to sit higher on his hips, tightening the drawstring, before making his way out towards the source of the noise. He knocks gently on Steve's bedroom door, and when there's no immediate _Piss off, Barnes_ , hesitantly slips inside.

Steve turns glassy, reddened blue eyes towards him, gazing up at Bucky with a pleading expression. His phone is clutched in his hand, screen glowing on Sam's page of his contacts. Bucky's stomach drops, and Steve looks down again, a wave of fresh tears leaking down his porcelain cheeks.  
"I... I need to call him."

"Steve," Bucky says, forcing himself to keep his voice level. "Steve, it... it doesn't have to happen again. It ain't gonna happen again. You're gonna tell Sam, he's gonna be mad about it for a bit but then he's gonna forgive you because he knows you love him and you're his world. It was a one-night thing that was a mistake, 'cause we were both lonely and things were gettin' wired and you're not gonna fuck up this great thing you got goin' for you 'cause a me, got it?" It was like swallowing poison to say, but Bucky couldn't do it. Couldn't let Steve break up with the love of his life over a stupid, meaningless one night stand with Bucky.

Of course, it wasn't meaningless to him. But Steve didn't deserve to suffer because Bucky couldn't keep his dick, or his heart, under control.

"Buck - no, Buck, listen - listen to me. It's... Me and Sam, we.... we're not in such a good place right now and honestly it's been getting worse ever since the start of this season and I don't think we were gonna make it much longer." He looks up with streaming eyes. "Buck, Sam is... he's a good man and I loved him once, but if I still loved him now I wouldn't have - I would never have done anything with you. I would never have cheated on him. But I did, and now... and now I gotta face the music and face the fact that I'm not in love with him any more."

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," Bucky answers desperately, hands pressed to the sides of Steve's head. "Don't you dare do it. Don't you dare throw this away over... over a fuck with me. Don't you dare. I'm not worth you ruining your life over me, Rogers. I'm not. I've never... I never been good enough for you, and Sam is. Don't break your heart over me, Steve. Don't you do that to yourself."

"Buck-"

"No, Steve, I'm not listenin' to any more arguments. You can't, understand me? You can't lose him for no reason."

"But you-"

"If you say _You are a reason_ , so help me, Rogers, I will walk out of that front door and I won't come back until... I won't come back. No."

"Buck, I - I-"

Bucky is crying, shaking his head. It hurts, it hurts so desperately he can hardly breathe even with his lungs already ruined, and his head is throbbing with a crying headache and his gut is burning because he wants, he wants so badly to let Steve do this and throw Sam away and take him, but he can't. Someone has got to be Steve Rogers' moral compass here, and with the man himself so grief-drunk and guilty, Bucky's got to do it. Breaking his own heart is the stupidest, most painful thing Bucky has ever done, but also the most noble.

Steve must be rubbing off on him.

"Buck, _I love you_!" Steve shouts, breaking down and burying his head in his hands. His thin shoulders shake with sobs and he makes an honest-to-God pained sound when he leans against Bucky's shoulder and scrubs his hand over his face. Tears and snot and saliva all get smeared all over him, but he doesn't seem to care; all that he does is grab Bucky's hand and hang on for dear life, sobbing brokenly into his shoulder. Bucky doesn't know what to do. Steve is feeling guilty over cheating on his boyfriend, he's been lonely, he's had nothing but worry over Bucky for weeks, and now he's faced with the possibility of losing Sam over the cheating or Bucky over losing Sam, and he's lost and overwhelmed and Bucky is as helpless as he is.

Steve's phone rings, breaking the moment. Steve glances at Bucky with pained, tear filled eyes before tremulously raising the phone to his ear and saying, "Hello?"

 _Steve. We gotta talk_.

"Sam, I - I mean, I need to talk to you too, but not right now, I - I'm with Bucky-"

 _That's what I wanna talk about_.

"What?"

_Steve, I know Bucky is your best friend and that you're worried about him but - damn it, Rogers, I haven't seen you in months and I miss you. You're my boyfriend, Steve, I just... I miss you, and every time I try an' get close t'you it's just 'No, Sam, I gotta go see Bucky.'_

"Sam-"

_No. I've... I've had enough. Ever since the start of this season, the moment you saw him you've been... I catch it all the time. The pair of you, makin' eyes at each other, dancing up against him like you want me to get jealous. I'm not a toy, Steve. You don't get to play with me like that. I can't... I love you, Steve, but honestly, I can't stand there and watch you chase him and leave me behind. I have feelings and I've got a heart and I know when it's being broken, and I'm not gonna stand for it anymore._

"Sam - please-"

_Who is it you want, Steve? Do you even know?_

"Sam, wait-"

_Who. Is it?_

"I - I-"

_It's not me, is it? Not anymore._

"Sam, I love you - I just - I-"

_Save it, Steve. I'm just... I'm just done with this. I'm done with being played with, I'm done with being the one you run back to out of obligation, not because you want to. I can tell that you're away with him in your head. I'm not stupid, and I don't like that you've been treating me like I am. I'm calling it, Steve._

"No - Sam, please-"

_I'm sorry, Steve. I'm not gonna wait for you to make up your mind when we both know which way it's gonna go anyway. I'll come get my things tomorrow._

The phone line clicks off.

Steve stares at the phone, eyes glassy with shock, and then up at Bucky, still holding the phone like it's about to detonate.

"He... it's done. We're... he's called it."


	5. Finish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again beta'ed by [Mai](http://perfbucky.tumblr.com). An actual angel, people.
> 
> Any mistakes remaining are mine!

Sam does as he says. At ten o'clock the following morning, he rings the doorbell of his and Steve's apartment and tiredly slumps through the door, having taken the red-eye flight from Rio de Janeiro. Steve is practically falling over himself to apologise, to salvage the relationship; Sam shakes his head and tells Steve to sit down on the couch whilst he makes them both a cup of tea, and then they can talk about it.

"Sam, I'm sorry-" Steve begins, his voice wobbling. Sam cuts him off with a raised palm, and shakes his head again slowly, running his hand over the peach-fuzz of hair on his head.

"I understand, Steve," he says quietly, his dark eyes fixed on Steve's watery blue, his expression soft. "I think... I think I was expecting too much of you, the last few weeks. I'm not here to discuss the hows, or whys, of what happened. It happened, and I'm - not _okay_ with it, but I'll cope. Steve, you're... you're the kindest man I know, and I've always known that you wouldn't do anything to deliberately hurt me. If this-" he gestures between them, "ever came to an end, it was going to be because it'd run its course."

"But I did hurt you," Steve says desperately. "Sam - Sam, I've - there's something I didn't tell you -"

"You don't need to," Sam says, glancing up at the doorway behind which Bucky is hidden, trying to give the pair of them their space. "Bucky already told me."

Steve looks dumbfounded as he glances towards the doorway, visibly searching for Bucky in the shadows between the open door jamb. Bucky presses himself back against the wall, heart aching, and Sam smiles sadly, rubbing his thumb over the back of Steve's hand.

"I know you, Steve. But so does Bucky. You always stew over whatever's eatin' you for ages, until you can't hold it in any more - and then when people explode at you for keepin' it from them for so long, you think to yourself, _Well, I deserved that_. He was... I guess he was just trying to protect you from that. Because god knows, I gave him an earful." Sam shakes his head. "I know you, Steve. You're not the kind for calm. You're not the kind for a picket fence, two and a half kids and a dog."

"Please, Sam-"

"No, Steve, it's fine." He laughs. "We were too safe. Too sedentary. You're a racing driver, Steve. Anything slower than full throttle all the time isn't enough for you. And I knew that, because this has been stewing for the whole season. It was fun while it was all jetsetting and all-over-the-world with the Formula One last year - but then we had the down season in the middle. You were itching to get going again, and I was... I was happy just having you, six months off racing, and an apartment to come home to. We want different things, Steve."

"I want my boyfriend," Steve mumbles miserably, reaching out for Sam needily. Sam gives a sad, quiet laugh and gently lowers Steve's hands back to his sides.

"I don't think you do." His eyes on Steve's face are serious. "I can't really speak for you, obviously, but I think what's going on is that everything's changing and you're scared. It happens. Change is scary. We've both got to get used to being on our own again."

"I don't want to be on my own-"

Sam smiles. "Well, much as I regret to say it-" he looks up at Bucky's doorway again, where Bucky is leaning slightly around the doorframe to watch them both. "I think there's somebody more than willing to stop that from happening."

Steve shakes his head. "I can't. I... He told me if I ruined what I had with you over that.... over what happened between me and him, he'd leave and never come back." Steve rubs at his eyes, chest shaking with sobs he fought back viciously. "So I've lost you both..."

 Sam rubs the back of Steve's hand gently, and Steve clings to him, laying his head on Sam's shoulder miserably.

"I was mad about you sleeping with Bucky, yeah," Sam tells him, "but... you were lonely and I wasn't there, and I know I wasn't the most important thing on your mind. I haven't been for a while. It's okay, Steve. Holding onto something that was slipping away from the both of us wouldn't have done us any good. Like I said... it had run its course." He runs his hand over Steve's hair, smoothing the tangled gold down gently. "I'll miss you, but it's okay, Steve."

"But... I don't understand," Steve mumbles, confused. "You should be mad - I slept with someone else, Sam! Why aren't you mad?"

"Because... because all I ever wanted was to see you happy," Sam replies, eyes glassy with tears, "and I wasn't doing that any more. Bucky is. So in a way, I'm still getting what I wanted."

Steve starts to cry. Bucky, around the corner, leans against the door and tips his head back against the wall. He stares at the ceiling, eyes filled with tears, and chokes back a sob. Everything going on outside the door is his fault - the fact that Sam is having to sit there and break up with Steve all over again, Steve crying. His chest hitches as Steve's, on the other side of the wall, does the same, and Sam calls him over quietly.

Steve rubs at his eyes quickly, smoothing the tears away with the pads of his thumbs, and blinks the wetness back. Bucky awkwardly takes the seat furthest from the pair of them, an armchair at the far end of the coffee table.

"Bucky, tell this knucklehead here that he hasn't lost you." Sam insists, his voice unwavering.

"But-"

"Just say it. Tell him the truth." Sam runs his hands over his head again. "The pair of you - I'm done watchin' you dance around each other. This has been going on since the pair of you met, whether Steve was with me or not. You've both been building up to it, and it's about time you stopped dragging yourselves and everyone else along and just do it." His eyes are glazed with a strange kind of bittersweet resignation Bucky has never seen before, as Sam takes Steve's hand again and gently shifts it to Bucky's shoulder, Steve's eyes following its movement almost as though he doesn't realise that the hand belongs to him. He glances at Bucky's face, trembling, and bites his lip.

"Sam..."

"It's not hard, Steve. It's three words."

"I..." He's still stumbling over the syllables, his voice wobbling, so Bucky takes the initiative. He takes a deep breath, looks Steve in the eyes, and says:

"I love you."

"Buck," Steve gasps, pleading. "Bucky, please-"

"Steve," Sam groans, "let yourself have this one thing. Please. It won't kill you."

"I... I love you, Buck," Steve whispers.  


* * *

  
They decide, however, to take things slowly, more at Bucky's insistence than Steve's. He and Sam had been dating for almost three years, after all, and coming out of a relationship that long requires a cooling-off period of getting over your ex before starting anew with someone else. Steve insists that he's been in love with Bucky for months - years, possibly - but Bucky isn't backing down. He knows what it's like to go jumping from one relationship to another, with no breathing space and no downtime. He's been there; felt the _all I need is someone to love me_ mindset slowly tear him apart. He spent most of his teenage years chasing toxic relationship after toxic relationship, girlfriends that manipulated and broke his heart, and boyfriends that wanted nothing more than a fuck from him when he was still so confused with the rebound that every time he had sex, he was convinced it meant love.

He doesn't want that for Steve.

The next race is the final, Abu Dhabi, at the Yas Marina circuit. Two weeks have passed since the Brazilian GP and the breakup conversation, and Steve is still fluttering anxiously around the McLaren pits, worrying over Bucky.

Bucky really shouldn't be racing, if he's honest. The doctor has told him how stupid an idea it is when he's still getting used to the new prosthetic and how to move and manipulate the awkward metal fist and its grip settings. His left side is still mostly covered in bandages and dressings shielding the fragile, healing skin from chafing against his overalls; occasionally it twinges if he moves too quickly, if his limbs jerk as he turns too fast around a corner of the track. Still, he's determined not to let the accident beat him; not to let one mistake ruin his entire life.

Clint is refusing to let him anywhere the pit section, chivvying him back towards the stands, when Steve arrives in the pits. He immediately heads towards the heated discussion in the corner where Bucky is jabbing at the air with one finger and Clint is standing his ground, hissing a fierce "Not on your life, Barnes," back at him.

"Bucky wants to race," Clint immediately tells him, raising his eyebrows in an expectant 'Tell him how stupid his brilliant idea is' expression.

Steve doesn't disappoint.

"Tell me he's kiddin', Buck. You've gotta be kidding me. You almost get yourself killed at the last Grand Prix, and then the moment you're out of hospital you come up with the bright idea to do it all over again at this one? No way. You're not racing today, even if I have to chain you to the goddamn stands myself. I'll call Sam and grab his bike locks, see if I don't."

"I'm not going to drive," Bucky argues, shaking his head. "I know I can't. I can't control the arm. If I go out there, there's no guarantee I'll be able to get the car safely around the track, which is putting everyone else out there in danger as well. I've caused enough trouble this season." He sighs self-deprecatingly. "But I can ride pillion, right? I can go with someone else?"

"Not during the race, Buck. Those cars can't hold two people, you know that, and there's not gonna be a need for the safety cars this time. Track's dry as a bone and there's no rain forecast at all." Clint tells him, fiddling underneath Alonso's car with a spanner. He peeks out to fix Bucky with a glower. "And don't even think of tryin' to pull a fast one and batting your eyelashes at Steve here to take you with him. You're not going out there, and that's final. Bosses will have your guts if you even think about it."

"But I wouldn't-"

"Bucky," Steve says quietly, stepping forward and glancing around the pits nervously, checking for beady-eyed reporters or paparazzi, "Buck, please. I almost lost you in Hungary. Nobody thought you got outta that alive - Rosberg led a moment of silence, because they'd heard nothing at the hospital and I wasn't there to tell them otherwise. The priest came into your hospital room to read your Last Rites. The doctors told me to _pull the plug_. I don't wanna go through that again, so please-" he lays a hand on the side of Bucky's neck, thumb rubbing over his Adam's apple, eyes warm and adoring and worried on his face, "please, don't risk it again. Don't go out there today. I don't even trust the other drivers with you. I don't trust anyone with you right now."

"I'm not made of glass," Bucky argues, but sighs in defeat. "You ain't gonna baby me forever though, right?"

"No." Steve promises. "Just until I'm sure you're okay. Remember? I gotta make sure you're alright."

Bucky gives him a soft smile and nods. "See you at the finish line."

"At the finish line, then," Steve agrees, and waves goodbye as he jogs towards Ferrari's pits to line the car up on the starting grid.  


* * *

  
The race starts in a flutter of black and white and the scream of rapidly accelerating F1 engines. Bucky is sat in the commentator's box with a perfect view of the whole track, and lets out a shameless whoop of excitement when he sees Steve weaving in and out of cars five or six places ahead of his starting position, already firmly establishing himself near the front. Bucky grins and turns to Murray Walker beside him, pointing and laughing. "I'm not even on track and Steve's tryin' to chase my record!" As if he's heard him, Steve rockets ahead, narrowly avoiding a scratch from Massa and throws himself after Hamilton in first around the track.

Bucky taps into the Ferrari intercom to hear Steve's murmuring to himself, constantly taking mental notes on his competitors and their positions, strengths and weaknesses. It's no wonder he's always been so good at getting under people's skin on track - he knows each and every other driver's habits and personalities inside out. Bucky sees Hamilton ahead of Steve opening up a little on the hairpin bend - a mistake Steve takes full advantage of, squeezing past and only narrowly managing to stay on track and beginning to pull away on the straight.

"Rogers pulling into first - by Jove, he's a cheeky beggar!" one of the BBC commentators beside Murray laughs into the radio microphone, and Bucky grins to himself. _That he is_. "Rogers only just managing to stay on the track around turn 2 - as you all know, folks, gaining an advantage by coming off track can carry a pretty hefty points penalty... The mark of a truly superior driver there, and my word, is Hamilton chasing him hard! We're listening in to Ferrari's commentary in the pits now, and Hamilton is being told to continue chasing pole - of course, he's almost guaranteed a podium finish on points, but it's the last race of this year's championship, ladies and gentleman, and anything can happen here at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix..."

Rosberg is creeping up behind Hamilton and Steve. The BBC commentators seem to be rooting for Mercedes this year, and of course Bucky would usually give them a hard time about it - unfair and unprofessional, after all, but Bucky is shamelessly cheering for one team and one driver only up here as well, so he can't do so without being hypocritical either. Bucky can imagine being there, hurtling around the chicane bends behind Steve. The commentators ask him every so often if he's got anything to add or comment on, but he has to say that driving and watching are very separate experiences. On track, all there is to worry about is not crashing and finishing as high up the grid as possible. He's not great at analysis; he barely scraped a high school diploma. He always has been, first and foremost, a driver.

But when they ask him to comment on who he thinks is going to win, both the race and the championship overall, he comes alive.

"Well, now that I'm out of the running for the foreseeable future, I think both Hamilton and Rogers have had a really strong year... Lewis is just streaking ahead in every race he's driven, he's got a real knack for sneaky tactics and edging his way through the gaps in the other drivers' armour... But Steve is just... I honestly think he's the best in the championship at the moment. He's been strong all season, gaining those points steadily and climbing his way up the leaderboard... Missing a few races probably harmed his chances, but personal circumstances shouldn't be held against him as a driver outside of the championship. I think everyone here is more than aware that I owe him my life from Japan. He's my hero on and off track, in all honesty."

The commentators, faces sombre, nod. "He is definitely that, James. Well. Let's hope for a hero's finish to the season, eh?"

"Definitely," Bucky nods, and flips the switch for the Ferrari intercom.

"Hey, Stevie."

"Buck. Can't talk. Driving." Steve's voice is quietly amused, and Bucky can almost hear the smile on his face. He laughs.

"I'm not settling with anything less than pole, you hear me?"

"Roger that."

Bucky groans, and cuts the intercom to the sound of Steve's cackling laughter.  


* * *

  
Steve finishes, as predicted, in pole. By way of his self-imposed three race absence after Japan, he's acceded the championship to Hamilton, who accepts the larger championship trophy with a wide grin, but as race winner, he still receives a smaller trophy and a bottle of champagne. He soaks first the crowd and then himself in the fizzling wine, laughing, and pretends to shower in it when Rosberg uncaps his own and sprays it directly at him. The cameras are picking up all of this tomfoolery when Bucky, racing down the stairs from the commentator's box, sprints up onto the podium to throw his arms around Steve and kiss him, hard, right on the lips.

There's an explosion of flashing camera bulbs around them, paparazzi and reporters' voices rising over the hubbub to shout questions, and Bucky just smiles against Steve's lips, tasting the champagne on his skin and knotting his hands in Steve's hair. It's very much a PDA, and Rosberg is laughing behind them, Hamilton applauding and making ribald comments, and Steve is just... perfect, thinks Bucky, so much so that he can't even think about the race and the championship and the fans. All he can think of is Steve against him, laughing, and his arms looping around Bucky's waist.

They break away to the catcalls of drivers and fans alike, with reporters shoving microphones under their noses and asking, How long have the two of you been dating? Steve, is this why we've not been seeing you out and about with Sam Wilson? Steve just shrugs and says, "Ask him."

Sam, down in the crowd, mock-glowers. "Answer your own damn questions, Rogers!"

"Mr Wilson - Sam - how do you feel about this development? You and Steve were dating for three years, weren't you - did this come as a surprise, or-?"

"No surprise at all," Sam says, glancing up at them, and Steve looks guilty. "But it was an amicable breakup, and - and I mean look at him and Bucky. Steve's never been happier, and that's all I could have asked for as his partner. Am I sad, sure. Do I regret it? Looking at him and Bucky... no. I don't regret it at all."

Steve bites his lip and throws Sam a salute; Sam grins and salutes back before wandering off, a pack of reporters nipping at his heels. Bucky's head turns to grin mischievously at Steve.

"I'm gonna beat you to it next year, though."

"You're on, Barnes."  


* * *

****  
ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX: BARNES VS. ROGERS TAKES AN INTERESTING TURN  
_by Elizabeth Ross_

_BUCKY BARNES AND STEVE ROGERS are well known as fierce competitors on the circuit, but it would seem that the on-track heat between them has continued to build in their personal lives as well. Barnes, who this year was hospitalised following a high-speed crash during the Japanese Grand Prix which left him fighting for his life, joined Abu Dhabi champion Rogers on the podium for a passionate kiss as Mr. Rogers celebrated his race win. The pair offered no comment to inquisitive reporters beyond Mr. Rogers joking that enquirers should 'ask Sam [Wilson, Rogers' long-term partner, now ex]' what happened to lead to his and Mr. Barnes fiery reunion on the Abu Dhabi podium._

_Mr. Barnes offered glowing praise for his fellow driver from the pundits' box during the race, calling Mr. Rogers his 'hero': "I think everyone here is more than aware that I owe him my life from Japan. He's my hero on and off track, in all honesty." He then went on to say that Mr. Rogers was "the best in the championship at the moment", and his judgement could definitely have proved to be right, had Mr. Rogers not missed three races between the Japanese Grand Prix and this weekend's Abu Dhabi final. Speculation suggests that the reason for Mr. Rogers' absence may have been supporting the recuperation of the injured Mr. Barnes, but no official statement on the subject has been released._

_Whatever happened this season, Barnes and Rogers have been completing some spectacular races, dominating the leaderboard for much of the season. With the winding down of the season, what are they planning to do with their downtime before next year's season begins in Germany? In the words of Mr. Rogers, "I'm going to be watching him like a hawk to make sure he doesn't go getting himself in any more trouble before we even get started!"_

_Betty Ross, The Marvel's Sports correspondent for the 2015 Formula One season._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it! It's all over. Thank you so much to everyone who read this and left me comments, and thank you to my beta Mai [perfbucky](http://perfbucky.tumblr.com), without whom this would have been significantly more poorly-written. I can't thank you enough, Mai.

**Author's Note:**

> A note for those who aren't familiar with F1:
> 
> Teams and their drivers, according to [the official Formula One website](https://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/championship/teams.html) (plus personal mechanics/team bosses, as mentioned):  
>  **Mercedes**  
>  Lewis Hamilton  
> Nico Rosberg
> 
>  **Ferrari**  
>  Sebastian Vettel  
> Steve Rogers (- Sam Wilson, mechanic)
> 
>  **Williams**  
>  Felipe Massa  
> Valtteri Bottas
> 
>  **Red Bull Racing** (not to be confused with **Toro Rosso** )  
> Daniel Ricciardo  
> Daniil Kvyat
> 
>  **Lotus**  
>  Romain Grosjean  
> Pastor Maldonado
> 
>  **Force India**  
>  Sergio Perez  
> Nico Hulkenberg
> 
>  **Toro Rosso**  
>  Max Verstappen  
> Carlos Sainz
> 
>  **Sauber**  
>  Marcus Ericsson  
> Felipe Nasr
> 
>  **McLaren** (- racing director Nick Fury)  
>  Fernando Alonso  
> Bucky Barnes (- Clint Barton, mechanic)
> 
>  **Marussia**  
>  Will Stevens  
> Roberto Merhi
> 
> Tyre 'grades'/colours (supplied by Pirelli for the 2015 season):  
> *All 'colour' tyres are black rubber with four coloured grooves around the treads.  
> *Pirelli designates two dry types of tyres to be used for each Grand Prix based on the circuit. The softer of the two is referred to as "option", and the harder "prime".
> 
>  **Red** : Supersoft slick tyres for dry conditions. Dry type: option only. Grip 4 (most grip) / durability 1 (least durable).  
>  **Yellow** : Soft slick tyres for dry conditions. Dry type: prime/option (drivers can use either). Grip 3 / durability 2.  
>  **White** : Medium slick tyres for dry conditions. Dry type: prime/option (drivers can use either). Grip 2 / durability 3.  
>  **Orange** : Hard slick tyres for dry conditions. Dry type: prime only. Grip 1 / durability 4.  
>  **Green** : Intermediate treaded tyres for wet conditions where there is no standing water (eg. puddles, rainwater) on the track. Wet tyres, so no 'dry type' designation.  
>  **Blue** : Treaded tyres for wet conditions where standing water is involved.


End file.
